According to Statistics Canada, over half a million acres of productive (class 1-3) farmland was "settled" between 2000 and 2011. This "settled area" on dependable agricultural land grew by 19 percent in Canada, with the largest increase happening in southern Ontario and Quebec. The loss of farmland isn't a new phenomenon (the last time people... Read More
Category: Farm Management
Coffee shop talk is often revered and repeated, but is it completely honest? What if, instead of comparing your farm and farm practices across the fence row, you instead sat down with farmers from one hundred kilometers away and compared notes? What could you learn? That's the concept behind formal peer advisory groups, explains Dr... Read More
Farm Management Canada is set to host the newly relaunched Agriculture Excellence Conference in Regina, Sask., this November 25-27, 2015. The theme of this year's event is 'Cultivating the Entrepreneurial Farmer,' and that theme will be carried through a moderated debate on social license, a panel on the future of farming, roundtable sessions, engaging keynote... Read More
The Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council (CAHRC) announced this week the list of individuals who now form the advisory group for the Supporting the Advancement of Women in Agriculture project. The project, funded through the Status of Women Canada, will “examine and address critical barriers to advancement facing women in the industry.” From there, the... Read More
The second annual Robert (Bob) L. Ross scholarship program is now accepting applications. The scholarship is offered by Agri-Food Management Excellence (AME) in collaboration with Farm Management Canada, Family Farms Group and the Ross Family. Applications must be received by September 15, 2015 The successful recipient will receive free tuition to the CTEAM (Canadian Total... Read More
“Lean” principles originally developed to increase efficiency and reduce waste in the automobile manufacturing sector are being applied in many other business and process-related sectors, including primary agriculture. Toyota is often credited as the first company to develop and intentionally implement Lean principles in their assembly lines decades ago. Last year, the Agri-Food Management Institute,... Read More
How does that old saying go? Crop prices take the stairs up but the elevator down. It could be said that crop input prices do the exact opposite. Price trends of both variable and fixed inputs seem to march to their own drum. Variable input prices are slow to back off highs; fixed costs can... Read More
The Canadian Pork Council is exploring the feasibility of a hedging program to help hog producers manage price volatility and cash flow needs. Bev Shipley, MP for Lambton-Kent-Middlesex and chair of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, announced federal funding of up to $169,530 for the project through the federal AgriRisk Initiatives program on... Read More
There are seven common types of risks to your farm business. There's price risk, weather risk, production risk and more, but have you thought about opportunity disguised as risk? If you're comfortable playing the odds on big projects or plays, how do you find balance in other parts of your farm business? How do you... Read More
June 30 was a big day in 1867: the eve before the birth of this great nation. This year, nearly 150 years later, it marked the end of the trading month, the end of the trading quarter, the final day for Greece to accept new financial austerity measures or make a €1.6 Billion loan payment... Read More